Salute 2015...today :)

God morning :)

I´m in London and soon on my way to Salute to run our participation game Stockholm 1392 - "God's Friends and the Whole World's Enemies"

I thought I should give you a little more background to our game.

It is 1392 and German mercenaries and pirates are terrorising the population of Stockholm. They are called the Vitalian Brotherhood and are ruling the city by fear and violence. Will the Swedes stand up to them? 

Anno Domini 1392 Stockholm, King Albrecht of Mecklenburg’s last remaining area of control in Sweden. The town has been under siege since 1390 by Queen Margaret of Denmark and her troops. The only way to get victuals (supplies) to the some 5000 inhabitants is by sea. The Vitalian Brotherhood was a companionship of German mercenaries that were hired by the Dukes of Mecklenburg to ship food to keep the city supplied, they also got a Letter of marque that gave them the right to hijack Danish ships, but they soon turned to piracy and coastal plunder in the Baltic Sea. Maritime trade in the Baltic Sea virtually collapsed, and the herring industry suffered from their depredations. Queen Margaret even turned to King Richard II of England and sought to charter English ships to combat the pirates.

During a hot summer week in Stockholm, 1392, the Vitalian Brotherhood, German Burgers and their vigilante Hättebröderna were involved in the cleansing of the towns prominent Swedish Burgers as they were afraid that the Swedes contacts with Queen Margaret's troops would end in the capture of Stockholm and that the town would be taken by the Danes. The execution of the Swedish leaders in town would reduce that risk. The opportunity to take over the Swedes fortunes may also have played a role…

Rules 
Our rules of choice are Daniel Merseys medieval skirmish rules Lion Rampant produced by Osprey. We have made some tweaks to the rules to speed it up a bit and get a better participation game at the convention.

• Only use half sized groups each with its own leader.
• Half the attack and defense dice, i.e. 6 dices as the group are already half, but it will have no effect on the Morale. 
• We do not test Courage for: Unit becomes your only unit remaining on the table or Retinue has had half or more of its total points value of units removed from play and do not use the -1 if your retinue has had half or more points of units removed from play modifier. 
• Activation cards are used to determine the order of activation. 

Terrain
The Terrain used portrays a part of central Stockholm, with the main square, the main church and part of the castle as main features and it is all custom made by Jan Kärrman.

Miniatures
We use 28mm minis from several manufacturers, Perry miniatures, Gripping Beast, Fire Forge amongst others. Most are painted by yours truly :)

Each player take the role of a main character and his loyal followers…

Mecklenburg (Germans) 
Herbert Königsmark, Mecklenburg Knight and Captain at Stockholm Castle
1x6 Vitalian Brothers and otherMecklenburg Mercenarys (Expert Foot Serjants)
1x6 Vitalian Brothers and otherMecklenburg Mercenarys (Crossbowmen)

Alf Grenerot, German Mayor of Stockholm
2x6 Vitalian Brothers (Ferocious foot)

Swedes 
Berthold Bruhn, Swedish Mayor of Stockholm
2x6 Swedish City Guard and rallied Burgers (Foot Yeomen with mixed weapons)

Jöns Djekn, Swedish Town Council Member
2x6 Swedish City Guard and rallied Burgers (Foot Yeomen with mixed weapons)

Scenarios 
The Scenarios used are variants of the ones in the Lion Rampant rulebook that I customized to get a good feel to them. The Scenarios can be played as a mini campaign by just adding together the Glory earned in each scenario.

A special thanks 
To Osprey Publishing, Perry Miniatures and Stockholm Medieval Museum for their support of our gaming project.

I hope to see you during the day !